The Virgin of Charity

The severe image of the Virgin in this sculpture is deliberately archaic and Byzantine in style. More up to date are the swirling volutes of the throne, which echo the decorative pattern on the cloth of honor behind the Virgin. She holds the wheel of charity, symbol of the Scuola della Carità, a Venetian lay confraternity whose headquarters is now the Accademia. The coat of arms is that of the donor, Paolo da Monte, who was a maker of rock crystal objects. The work was originally painted and gilded by a different artist, one Zuan del Verde, and it was installed on the facade of one of the Scuola’s houses at San Zulian. Isabella Stewart Gardner discovered it after it had been moved to another church. According to Morris Carter, “she happened to go there and found workmen hacking it out, and said she would buy it if they would stop and let her have it taken out.” Giammaria Mosca was a sculptor from Padua who worked in Venice in the 1520s, then moved to Kraków, Poland.

Source: Giovanna de Appolonia, "The Virgin of Charity," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 101.